Shop Direct drives customer service innovation with customer closeness centre
Very and Littlewoods owner Shop Direct has launched a new “customer closeness” centre at its Liverpool head office as a means of driving customer service innovation.
Members of the new team will work in four week cycles and spend the first two weeks dealing with customer queries via the phone and web chat to identify improvement opportunities. They will then spend the second week using the insights and data gathered to re-write processes and test new technology.
The team will include 20 frontline customer advisers.
Phil Hackney, group operations director at Shop Direct, said: “This new head office team and facility underlines our mission to create a frictionless and increasingly digital customer service experience to complement the seamless online journey customers already have when shopping on Very.co.uk and Littlewoods.com. Who better to identify opportunities for customer service improvement than our existing frontline advisors?”
Shop Direct has designed the centre to create what it describes as the ideal environment for customer service innovation. The office includes an open plan “agile zone” with collaborative meeting spaces and a customer zone featuring a contact centre.
The centre will also offer all departments at Shop Direct opportunities to listen to calls and influence how innovation is prioritised. In addition, there will be monthly external open days that can be attended by major retailers and other consumer brands.
The new centre will also support Shop Direct’s plans to continue enhancing its digital customer service capability. In 2018, almost 30% of the company’s customer contact came via digital channels, including the AI-powered Very Assistant chatbot, webchat and social media.
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